Time capsule of the Empires

Another election in Poland, another blast from the past of her Four Partitions. If you ever have been interested in communication with spirits of (supposedly) long-erased international borders, this week is as perfect time as any Poland’s electoral campaign to reaffirm that these borders feel much more alive than political correctness would dictate us to acknowledge.

There are, of course, also clear traces of the so-called unofficial Fifth Partition, when Galicia had been extorted from Poland to the Soviet Ukraine, with detrimental consequences for the Ukraine, ultimately spawning two Maidan uprisings, civil war, Russia’s invasion and proxy-WWIII.

2025 presidential election, first round:

2025 presidential election, second round:

Old border between parts of Poland controlled by the German and the Russian Empires overlaid with the current boundaries of Poland and the results of 2015 parliamentary election, for comparison purposes:

Many more of such “Zener maps of ghost-Poland” could be found in a brilliant essay here.

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Map is not a territory, but sometimes, like Borges could have said, a tale of two empires and their successors gives a rise to the need of a map whose size would be that of the time capsule of the empires.